Mazda Has All the Trimmings About Cars

By Marshall Schuon

Published: December 18, 1988

When I was a kid, we optioned our cars the way we wanted them. That meant going to the Pep Boys - Manny, Moe and Jack - or to Western Auto or to some such store for parts.

There were mud flaps and curb feelers. We installed blue-dot lenses in the taillights and we put spinner knobs on the steering wheels. My buddy Bill Hotchkiss even had a beer tap in the back seat of his '39 Pontiac.

In those days, you started with a plain vanilla vehicle and you added on. But that was before the likes of the Mazda 929, and the car makes me sorry for today's would-be customizers. It's hard to figure a way to cram a vehicle with more accessories than this one has, all of them straight from the factory.

Like this year's model, the '89 is a comely four-door sport sedan, aerodynamic, dressed in metallic paint and blackout trim. It is a roomy midsize with a smoothly quiet V-6 engine driving the rear wheels through a four-speed automatic transmission.

Performance and fuel economy are respectable, the trunk has a nice flat floor with low liftover, and safety gets a tip of the hat with rear shoulder belts provided for the two outboard passengers. But interior luxury is really what the 929 is all about.

True enough, the car does not have a video screen in the middle of the dash like the Buick Riviera. It does not have a ''heads-up'' display to project the speedometer onto the windshield, a la Nissan's 240SX. And it is missing the combination doorlocks that are built into Lincoln's windowsills.

But it does have nearly everything else. Lift the door handle and the keyhole lights up to help you work the central locking system at night. Both visors have lighted vanity mirrors. There are lights in the footwells and inside the doors, and front and rear passengers get their own reading lamps.

Power sideview mirrors are no big thing these days, but Mazda includes a defroster in its mirrors and tints them to reduce glare from following headlights. The driver's seat is heated as part of a ''cold package'' that gives the buyer all-season radial tires and a more powerful battery.

Hot or cold, the seating is comfortable, with buckets in front and a bench in back, all of them in leather in the rose-colored test car. Adjustment is electric and amazingly variable, even including a power recliner. And, just to make sure the driver is happy, there is a steering wheel that both tilts and telescopes.

The power sunroof also works two ways, flipping up or sliding open, and incorporating a vented sunshade to allow breeze without rays, if that's your pleasure. The automatic climate control offers further adventures in heating and cooling with a button called ''Swing'' that sets the vanes to oscillating in the dashboard outlets, sweeping air across both seats.

In addition, there is a strange black bubble up by the windshield, and the owner's manual informs the reader that it is yet another part of the complex climate control, a solar sensor whose purpose is to decide how much sun is beating down on the car and to compensate for it.

The 929 has full instrumentation, with an 8,000-r.p.m. tachometer and a 150-mile-an-hour speedometer, whose upper numbers are not likely to get worn out. Completing the array is an excellent Pioneer sound system with tape and compact disk players. It works with 25 buttons and two knobs and might best be tuned when the car is parked.

Below the radio, there is a very good ashtray with a gas-operated door that oozes open when you push its lighted button. Other buttons allow remote control of the trunk and fuel-filler door, and there are three more buttons just ahead of the shifter to put the electronically adjusted suspension into sport, soft or automatic mode.

The transmission itself has more than one mode, with shift patterns that can be programmed for economy or extra power. In the power position, the gearbox stays in its lower ranges longer while accelerating. A ''hold'' button also allows the driver to select the next lower gear without going to all the trouble of moving the shift lever. My, my.

On the road, the 929 is surprisingly quick, a factor of nicely matched gearing and the 18-valve, 3-liter V-6 that puts out 158 horsepower and can pull fair mileage out of a gallon of gas. The rating is 19 city and 23 highway, but careful driving can glean a bit more.

Antilock brakes are a rather expensive option at $1,000, and it is a shame they are not standard. But the A.B.S. four-wheel disks are well worth buying, and they stop the car in a sure, straight line, even under panic conditions.

With or without antilock brakes, though, the sticker adds up to a luxury car at a near-luxury price. The base is $21,920, and options on the tester brought the total to $25,409, not bad for a car that has everything but a beer tap.